LOCKDOWN EFFECT ON LABOR by Abhishek Chauhan

INTRODUCTION:
There is a nationwide lockdown to check the corona virus infection. But this lockdown has read the problems of the workers. Due to the lockdown the crisis employment has started deepening and due to lack of work, the problem food and drink has also started deepening. In such a situation workers are now returning to their states.

Because of the convenience of traffic due to lockdown, many workers have left for their village on foot so that they can live with their family in this hour of crisis. And because of it many people die because they were travelling 1000 kilometers for several days without eating anything.

The worst effect of the lockdown has been on migrants, especially daily wages laborers. Their employment is lost and they are forced to return to their respective homes. Due to the ban on public transport, they have to go home on foot.

The lockdown has left tens of millions of migrant workers inactive. They’re often from rural areas but live most of the year in India’s saga cities, serving as day laborers, construction workers or domestic help.

Most are logic to have no savings. Many lived in factory dorm, now shut, and got stranded when the government deter bus and train service last week. They’re vulnerable to deprivation and infection.

The fear is that these migrants could spread the corona virus from urban areas where they worked to rural areas — where there are not enough hospitals. With a chunk of the hospital beds and ventilators proportionality of developed countries, Indian doctors and public health experts warn that an outbreak of corona virus cases could deluge their hospitals on a greater scale than what’s happening in Italy and the United States — and get to many millions of deaths.

Many of the migrants traversing India this week say they know the harshness of the corona virus crisis and respect the government’s lockdown but have no other choice but to travel.
After the lockdown is implemented in the country, daily laborers have migrated to their home state, in such a situation; many sectors are facing lot of troubles:

• E-commerce:

The E- commerce sector is experiencing a severe shortage of delivery people. Only few people are getting them than they need. And also they are afraid of catching the disease. Those who continue to show up to work on the frontlines are attacked and harassed, exposing the skewed burden of risk in this ongoing crisis

• Retail:

The retail sector has been greatly affected by the shortage of laborers. Even with increased wages, they have to work with less and less people. These days German wholesaler metro cash and carry India is giving 500 rupees daily in addition to salary to its employees, then 400 rupees in addition to D mart salary.

Peacock retail of ADITYA BIRLA GROUP is also paying almost double salary to the employees. Even then, there are not enough workers. A retail company like big bazaar can even work to bring them home.

• The iron and steel industry

The iron and steel industry is also facing labor shortage. A senior official of the steel authority of India Ltd, the largest public sector steel company, says that the iron and steel industry is in the essential services sector, hence their steel plants are running. But there are not enough laborers to come there.

What states are doing for migrant workers: The Union government, as part of its response against the novel corona virus disease (COVID-19), imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 24, 2020. A large number of people gathered to take public transport to go back to their villages and home towns.

The migrant workers were, however, unaware about the fact that the lockdown had suspended all public transport until the lockdown was lifted.

A large number of the migrants and their families disappointed and helpless began undertaking their journeys on foot.

Media reports said around 383 people died while undertaking these journeys, with the Ministry of Home Affairs authorizing state governments to use their disaster response funds, amounting to Rs 29,000 crore.

The funds would help states provide support to migrants by giving them shelter, food and medical support. Approximately two million migrants, however, are stranded across India, according to data from the Union Ministry of Labor and Employment.

This is where action taken by states can have a significant impact on the lives of migrants and laborers. Some states exhibited higher standards of human values while they extended support to stranded migrant laborers in their respective states.

Kerala
The southern state has a long history of several thousands of its citizens working abroad. The policies in place for migrant labor in the state before the pandemic worked in its favor. The government chose to call the 3.5 million migrant workers stranded in the state as ‘guest workers’, to avoid any negative narratives and to maintain their dignity.
It also used its ‘Ernakulum model’ to reach out to workers through migrant community kitchens managed by them, a move aimed to provide food for them.

Telangana
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao reached out to three lakh migrants stranded in the state by addressing a press conference. Rao assured migrant workers that the state government would provide them food, shelter, medicine and financial support until the lockdown was over.
The message from the chief minister was aimed as a confidence building measure among migrant workers.

Odisha
The coastal state that has experience of managing several natural disasters took timely and proactive steps to address the issues of its own migrant workers who were stranded in other states.
The state government launched help lines and appointed nodal officers for key migrant destination states.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik also personally wrote letters to his counterparts to extend support to Odisha’s citizens stranded in the respective states and also offered reimbursement of funds being spent on the stranded migrant workers.
The state government is currently attempting to help around 50,000 migrant laborers stranded in the state’s approximately 1,800 relief camps.
Jharkhand
Approximately 600,000 migrant laborers from Jharkhand were stranded in 10,000 different areas across India, according to the state government. The Jharkhand government launched ‘Chief Ministers Special Assistance Scheme’, a mobile app to help with the registration of the stranded laborers.

The app is expected to help transfer Rs 1,000 as emergency financial assistance to the laborers. It is time for states to effectively develop mechanisms for the safe movement of stranded migrants back to their villages.

Inter-state coordination to exchange data on stranded migrant laborers and their safe transport is crucial. Planned, orderly and effective management of mobility of migrants once the lockdown is lifted is also something that states need to urgently look at.
Instead of this Central government had announced an Rs 1.7 trillion financial package for “every poor person”, including migrant workers, to deal with the impact of the corona virus and “there was no obligation for migration of workers to rush to their village who started deviate from place of their occupation to the place of their residence.” “Their daily needs were being appropriate care of wherever they were working and the daily needs of their family members was being taken care of at their respective villages,”

Conclusion
We all know that if we want to survive in this corona virus then social distancing is very important. But on the other side we also know that how many problems are happening to labor, they do not have shelter, no food and that’s why they all want to go to their home because they are get panicked and that’s why they all move from one place to another.
So they should not get panic because now government is helping them. And it is our duty also if we see any person in trouble then helps them. Because all of us will have to come together then only this problem will be solved.